My DIY water chiller

[tgpfarm]

Well I didn't feel like shelling out $300 for a water chiller when I only wanted to lower the water a couple degree's.

So using stoner ingenuity I made my own water chiller.

I turned this:



Into this:



This is a counter top water cooler. It uses a T.E.C. to cool the water.

Thermoelectric cooling uses the Peltier effect to create a heat flux between the junction of two different types of materials. A Peltier cooler, heater, or thermoelectric heat pump is a solid-state active heat pump which transfers heat from one side of the device to the other side against the temperature gradient (from cold to hot), with consumption of electrical energy. Such an instrument is also called a Peltier device, Peltier diode, Peltier heat pump, solid state refrigerator, or thermoelectric cooler (TEC).[1] Because heating can be achieved more easily and economically by many other methods, Peltier devices are mostly used for cooling. However, when a single device is to be used for both heating and cooling, a Peltier device may be desirable. Simply connecting it to a DC voltage will cause one side to cool, while the other side warms. The effectiveness of the pump at moving the heat away from the cold side is totally dependent upon the amount of current provided and how well the heat from the hot side can be removed.

Good thing about using a peltier is that its silent, except for the fan on the hot side and it won't wear out like a compressor (mini fridge).

Now from my research, the peltier is a 65w model. That being said, it won't remove a ton of heat. But I don't need it to remove alot of heat, just need it to take the edge off.

Also I switched out the 12volt power supply for a 16v power supply, this will increase the cooling power alittle bit. Also wired up the fan to 16volts so it spins alittle faster.

 

[mjg132]

can you swap out the fan for a more silent model? is it a 120mm fan? and last but not least,whats the make and model of the cooler please dude

 

[Beanfish]

This is a great idea. I've seen threads suggesting using a water cooler but never one where someone actually did it. Good job!!!

Have you installed it yet? If so, how far has it dropped the temp? I'm curious to see how it's going to hold up.

Kudos!

 

[Mo. G]

brilliant!! how much were your expenses?

 

[tgpfarm]

Well my expenses where $50 bucks, only thing I had to buy was the water cooler. Everything else I had on hand.

As far as efficiency, I am still testing on my rez.

I did a trial run using a 5 gallon water jug. It was able to cool it down past room temp in about 5 hours. With a starting temp of ~85F. My growing rez is 20 gallons.

I don't know now if this is going to work as well as I had hoped. It is keeping the water temp about 75F where the air temp is about 79F.

The fan is a 80mm fan. When doing my 5 gal rez test I tried a 120mm 120cfm fan. Really it didn't seem to cool any faster.

The bad part is, according to the manual it is suppose to cool 0.1 gallons to ~45F an hour. With the added heat load of the lights and pump, I don't know if it is going to work good. Like I said, I increased the voltage to 16V to try to improve the cooling power.

The model of the cooler is a greenway GWD200W-1
There is not very much information about it online.

 

[inefectualize]

i have played with peltiers off and on for 8 years...you better insulate your res like crazy and i wouldnt be surprised if just the pump running will overpower the peliter....i think you will be lucky to see a 2 degree drop



this is a peltier cooling device with water cooled hot sides running about 120 watts...
to really have control over temps i would look into one of the micro compressor chillers....

 

[tgpfarm]

Well I think I have found a way to make this a more efficient system.

I am now running the pump intermittently, while keeping the peltier always cooling. This reduces the heat from the pump being injected into the water. Also I kinda think that the peltier becomes more efficient when the colder side becomes colder.
inefecualize, maybe you would be able to back up my claim there? If I am wrong then ok.

 

[Kelly.]

nice design

 

[ooga booga]

Running the pump inline helps, too. But I fully agree with inefectualize.

 

[inefectualize]

well think about it like this... it is a semi-conductor that is working like a heat pump that always maintains the same temperature differential between the hot and cold sides....so if the cold side is kept colder then the hot side is also cooler and the cooling system (in your case a heat sink with air cooling) has to do less work. Also you can make the thing run more efficiently the cooler you can keep the hot side....hence my water jacketed models....place a bunch of ice on the heat sink and see how cold the cold side gets

they are really fun to play with i think i have about 15 broken ones in my basement oh, and if your cooling fails on your hot side that little wafer will be junk in less than a minute!